Kenneth Joseph Mortimer
Teaching
Good English
Lebanese must master languages:
There is an abundance of specialists of every kind in the world,
so the one advantage that the Lebanese have is their knowledge
of three international languages, Arabic, English and French.
Not one of these languages should be neglected. Personally I find
it strange that after twelve years of Arabic in school, few are
the Lebanese young people who can stand up and make an impromptu
speech in literary Arabic with any confidence, although this is
the best way to hold and impress an audience in the countries
which offer most lucrative employment and are yet close to home.
The few whom I met who were capable of speaking fluent literary
Arabic were Armenians. Any language one knows (Greek, Armenian,
Italian, Kurdish) should be perfected.
English is of course the language mostly widely used in business.
Unfortunately, many imagine that English is an easy language and
do not bother to study it properly. Admittedly, words do not change
their form for conjugation, declension and agreement for number
and gender as in other languages; but this very fact means that
there are other far more subtle elements of postposition, idiom,
word order, modal verbs, etc. that must be thoroughly mastered
in order to avoid unintelligibility or ambiguity, or even downright
comic absurdity. Unfortunately, most Lebanese seem to think they
know Arabic better than the Jahilin, French better than Victor
Hugo and English better than Shakespeare. The use of tenses is
very precise in English.
Right/wrong schoolbooks:
It is a great mistake to use schoolbooks intended for schools
in UK or USA for teaching Lebanese. To begin with, the teaching
of English in Britain and America is in a ghastly mess. One has
only to hear the mistakes of basic grammar that now come out of
the once idealised BBC newsroom. English grammar and language
have never been taught in English-speaking countries in the way
French is taught in France, German in Germany or Arabic in the
Arab world. I was amazed when I first went to France and found
a little French girl learning tenses. I could not understand the
need.
I learnt my basic grammar and syntax (principal and subordinate
clauses, agreement, etc.) in Latin class nearly seventy years
ago when Latin was a sine qua non for education. A refined young
Englishman of my acquaintance with a BA English Lit. from Cambridge
had never learnt the names of the tenses until he followed a course
for British Council teachers of English as a foreign language.
I know two case in the UK and one in the USA of Lebanese doctoral
students at universities being put in charge of remedial English
for native students simply because, unlike the local professors,
they had learnt grammar. An English girl doing a BA English at
Nottingham asked what a verb was! Generally speaking, those who
have been to French-programme schools (or at least giving some
French) write better, more lucid, more logical English than those
who have been to English-programme schools. The best schoolbooks
for all levels were those that were made for the former British
colonies by Longman and OUP, and I believe they still are. This
might explain why the best, most elegant English is now written
by Indian and West African novelists and poets.
Here I have seen the Webster Dictionary in common use. But this
dictionary is a reference work for native speakers and of little
use for foreigners. A student used the word “gruntled”. He had
found it in Webster’s but had not noticed that it was used in
the early 17th century and once in 1926 by an author trying (and
failing) to be funny; also that it meant the same as disgruntled,
not the opposite. On the other hand, the Longman Contemporary
and the OUP Advanced Learner’s, intended for foreigners, show
how words are used in sentences; e.g. “I want you to help me”,
not “I want that you help me.”
I saw a book being used in Lebanon that was intended to enlarge
a student’s vocabulary. However, it contained polysyllabic words
of Latin or Greek origin, which a Lebanese usually knows from
French or from science class; what the Lebanese does need are
homely Anglo-Saxon words like edge, gut, rim, rut, more commonly
used than French-derived words such as border, intestine, that
might sometimes be inappropriate to the context. One should not
be fooled by a salesman who says that such-and-such a book is
used in America; this is no guarantee that it is suitable for
Lebanon, rather the contrary. The situation for French is totally
different.
Teachers and their formation:
It goes without saying that a teacher should know the language
he teaches – but it needs to be said! When there was no TV, when
radio always used good “BBC” English even for popular music programmes,
when children and adults were in the habit of serious reading,
when even popular newspapers and magazines had well-written articles,
when there was discipline and hard work in schools, one could
suppose that any school-leaver had mastered his mother language
before going to the university. The French have the excruciating
année propédutique to eliminate les canards boîteux
before they start university.
But, as we have already pointed out, students in UK and the USA
and USA are now entering universities with a low level of expression
in English. But it seems that students majoring in English, instead
of refining their mastery of the numberless forms of expression,
vocabulary, etc., spend their time studying theories of psychology
and pedagogy, which of course have some truth and utility, but
sometimes appear influenced by atheism or by a desire to make
life easier for teachers burdened with a great deal of administrative
work, large and ill-disciplined classes, and obstreperous parents.
Theories to justify multiple-choice questions are a case in point;
their one advantage is their ease of correction.
While there is a desperate shortage of people ready to accept
the ill-paid and despised form of slavery that teaching has become
in many countries (in the past they were at least respected),
their task is being rendered almost impossible by depriving them
of all means of maintaining their authority and making children
work. The fact is that there is no work without discipline, at
least in the formative years while self-discipline is being learnt.
Some years ago there was the idea that the teacher’s table should
be on a level with those of the pupils, so the latter would not
feel over-awed. The result was that teacher and pupils spent the
class craning their necks in an effort to see each other. Then
there was global reading, recognising words as a whole instead
of learning the alphabet and spelling; as a result, pupils were
unable to use a dictionary and the effect on their spelling was
catastrophic. Such theories may be backed up by impressive scientific-sounding
words, but in fact are quite unscientific since experiment only
shows up their stupidity.
Behaviourist theory is excellent if it means drilling with sentence
structures so that they become spontaneous conditioned reflexes
associated with an image or idea. After all, the principle of
conditioned reflexes must have been used by Assyrian and Roman
drill-sergeants thousands of years ago, and by mothers wanting
to teach their children good habits. Unfortunately, certain extreme
Behaviourists have pushed their ideas too far and applied them
in the wrong circumstances. During the war of 1941-45 Behaviourist
psychologist were called in by the US Army to find rapid methods
of forming interpreters for native languages in the South Pacific
war zone; but shouting battle-orders is a different matter to
writing clearly and logically.
Another result of Behaviourism has been an obsession with multiple-choice
questions, intended to measure intelligence and ability accurately
and scientifically. With multiple-choice examinations ahead, teachers
and manuals have to use multiple-choice questions as a means of
preparing their pupils, on whose success their salaries depend.
But putting a cross in an empty space simply does not give practice
in expressing one’s ideas clearly and grammatically and with logical
sequence and reasonable elegance, nor does it test one’s ability
to do so. It does not test one’s ability to write sentences with
correct vocabulary, sequence, grammar, spelling, punctuation and
capitalisation all at the same time. It only tests one’s ability
to do multiple-choice questions. However, the arch-Behaviourist
Watson said that, “So far in his objective study of man no behaviourist
has observed anything that he can call consciousness, sensation,
imagery, perception, or will. Not finding these so-called mental
processes in his observations he has reached the conclusion that
all such terms can be dropped out of any description of man’ activity.”
So one can only conclude that for the extreme Behaviourists language
does not mean anything and one may make any noise or scribble
one likes. Logically, this means that Behaviourism itself is only
mindless gabble.
Practical methods:
Form of exercises:
There is a saying “You mustn’t throw the baby away with the bathwater,”
so one must keep what has given good results with the old methods
while always being open to new ideas. Continual radical change
for its own sake will only keep us marking time. There will be
no lasting worthwhile acquisition.
The purpose of language is to express one’s ideas and desires.
Therefore practice must take the form of composing whole sentences
on the basis of illustrations or, where class-size and discipline
allow, certain activities. Cloze sentences (ones with a space
to be filled in by a word) may be sometimes necessary but should
be kept to a minimum. Question-and-answer exercises are far better.
Oral work:
The music, intonation, speech rhythm, and even facial expression
and gesture, are as much a part of a language as the phonemes
(sounds). I always used to exaggerate the intonation to ensure
that it was thoroughly assimilated (and to hold attention.) I
would never allow a pupil to read or to repeat a sentence in a
flat voice. I would make him shout with strong melody. To help
pupils further, I would give them some advice about yoga breathing
so that they would have perfect voice control. When a written
exercise had been corrected, the pupils had to be able to repeat
each sentence after taking just one glance at it. All this produced
results – and made the class much less boring.
Advanced work:
Before passing to free composition I found that précis
writing was by far the best exercise from every point of view
(in classe de 2nde). This means taking a text of 300-600 words
and reducing it to one third of its length while keeping all the
ideas, but with freedom to change their order and words and to
eliminate repetition. A single word or short phrase may replace
a clause or a sentence. This demands understanding and the ability
to write with logical sequence of ideas. It demands good vocabulary,
grammar and punctuation. There is no easy mechanical way of doing
précis writing. The chief problem is that correction demands
a high level on language mastery on the part of the instructor.
He must also be able to write concise remarks explaining the nature
of the errors of construction or logic. These had better be briefly
explained when the papers are returned in class. Errors common
to several papers can be dealt with in more detail.
Correction:
First, it is not enough for the instructor to write some such
remark as Sentence Structure (SS) when correcting. This leaves
the pupil bewildered (sentence structure is the main difficulty
for pupils who think in Arabic.) One must say for example “Lack
of parallel construction of clauses” or “non-def. rel. clause
needs commas.”
Second, every time a pupil makes a mistake he is forming a bad
habit. Therefore he must write the correct form three times to
acquire the correct reflexes or he will have a zero for his next
homework. The best method is to return the exercise-books, together
with oral observations, the same day that the next homework is
to be given, so the pupil will recopy the incorrect sentences
with the reason fresh in his mind. Once the timetable did not
allow me to do this for a certain class, and its progress was
remarkedly less. Once an army major stopped me in the street.
He said; “When we were in classe de 4ème we used to hate
you, because if there was a comma out of place, or a capital where
there should be a small letter, you would make us copy the whole
sentence calligraphy three times. But later I did an English test
for a staff officers’ course in the United States, and then I
loved you!”
Kenneth
Mortimer
